"Mike Gravel has a fairly large entourage of leftists who followed him into the Libertarian Party and managed to get credentialed as delegates. Not large enough to make a serious run at the nomination, at least not on the first ballot, but enough diehards to give him the loudest applause at multi-candidate events. However, tonight Gravel received two of the biggest ovations from the general libertarian audience, and both times were in response to comments made earlier by Wayne Allyn Root.

First, Root made the argument that the immigrants today were not like the immigrants of ages before. Root’s own parents were immigrants, but they came here to work, he says. Today’s immigrants come to America in order to collect welfare.

Gravel fiercely attacked this position. “Show me a single immigrant who came here to collect welfare. They don’t exist. These people come here to work!”

The crowd erupted with applause.

Secondly, Root compared himself to Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, and while admitting that Reagan did not govern as a libertarian, Root said Reagan ran as one.

Gravel pointed out how Reagan increased the debt, built up the military-industrial complex, and raised taxes on the poor. “We don’t need Ronald Reagan, we need liberty!”